(Alright, this is a young!Tadashi and Hiro fic. Enjoy!)

Tadashi considered himself a pretty good big brother. He didn't try to turn Hiro into his servant the way some of his friends did with their younger siblings, Hiro didn't drive him nuts, and honestly, they had so much in common that at least they could talk and joke and bond over robots and programming.

Sometimes though, it was hard to swallow the green-eyed monster. Because Hiro was just that much smarter than him.

Tadashi knew he was smart. He'd skipped a grade himself, and he had taken advanced classes his whole life. He fell into the category of 'gifted'.

But Hiro fell into the category of genius.

And right now, it was really, really hard to not be jealous.

"As you can see, our programs are exemplary and we have many opportunities for a brilliant young man such as yourself. There are classes on mechanical, electrical, and biomedical engineering, programming, robotic design…"

Tadashi turned out Mr. Hanagure to look at Hiro. His 10-year old brother was looking at the pictures Mr. Hanagure was showing him, of the advanced classes with brand new technology and contained campus and some of the most brilliant minds in robotics. Mt. Midori High was pretty good as far as the tech and the teachers went-everything was under ten years old at least, and it had been ranked top 5 within the city-but Tadashi would've done anything to get into Inazuri Technical Academy.

And Hiro was being offered a place. At the most elite high school in San Fransokyo. At the age of 10.

Tadashi bit his tongue and forced his face to stay neutral. Mr. Hanagure didn't notice.

"What kinds of projects do you get to work on?" Hiro asked softly, moving one of this brochures aside.

Mr. Hanagure beamed. "We give our students quite a bit of latitude, options within several different disciplines, the works. After all, we are grooming the brightest young mind of our time."

Tadashi had sent in an application to attend when he was in middle school. He had been politely rejected, saying that he just wasn't what ITA was looking for at the time. Seeing Hiro being offered what he had wanted so badly…

Tadashi forced it away. If Hiro decided to go, he'd be happy for him, and that would be the end of that.

Mr. Hanagure's speech wrapped up, and he sat beaming. Hiro swung his legs, looking over at Aunt Cass. "Can I go get a snack now? I'm hungry."

Both Mr. Hanagure and Aunt Cass seemed surprised about Hiro's nonchalant behavior. "Sure sweetie, there's some carrots in the crisper."

"Awww...Ok. Thanks Mr. Hanagure." Hiro said easily before darting into the kitchen. Aunt Cass laughed softly. "You know 10 years olds, they get pretty easily distracted."

"Right, of course. Perhaps a few days to make the decision?"

"Yes, we'll let you know."

Hiro stayed quiet the rest of the day, tinkering with one of his latest robots and reading a couple of volumes of his favorite manga. Tadashi was confused, and itching to know what Hiro wanted to do.

Finally, after they had all stuffed themselves with bacon mac and cheese and the vegetables that Aunt Cass insisted on all of them eating (even though no one in the Hamada household liked vegetables), Tadashi couldn't take it anymore.

"Hiro? Have you thought about if you want to go to the school?"

Hiro looked up from his cookie, face thoughtful. "A little."

Tadashi sat on his impatience. "Do you want to go?"

Hiro looked down, kicking his feet. "...not really."

Tadashi almost fell over. Aunt Cass blinked and set down her cookie. "How come? What didn't you like?"

Hiro shrugged. "I just didn't like it. All the people looked too happy in the pictures, and the projects looked kind of boring. Like the one of the boy building the rocket. It looked like the one from the third grade science fair. And Dr. Weinhoff is dumb."

Aunt Cass had to bite her lip to hold in a snicker, and Tadashi kept staring. "...what?"

"He's dumb. He said that Dr. Callahan's laws of magnetic circuits were completely wrong and would never be used in technology, but Dr. Callahan's research is some of the coolest stuff being looked at! He can make cool magnetic things!" Hiro's eyes, which had been calm while explaining why he didn't want to go to ITA, practically glittered as he fanboyed over Dr. Callahan.

Something uncoiled in Tadashi's stomach. He knew even if Hiro had accepted, it still would've been another year until he began attending (it was only October), but...Hiro didn't want to go. Because he genuinely didn't think it was good.

Then Hiro kept talking.

"Plus they didn't accept Tadashi, and Tadashi is super smart, so they're dumb." Hiro took a ferociously big bite out of his cookie.

Tadashi blinked, his cheeks warming slightly. Aunt Cass sent him a smile, clearly happy to see Hiro's hero-worship of his big brother coming out.

Hiro looked up and looked between them. "What?"

"Nothing Hiro, we just love you very much." Aunt Cass replied simply, pulling the smaller boy into a hug.

Later that night, Tadashi was sitting on his bed, reading a book, when there was a pat on the screen. He looked up and the screen cracked open. Big brown eyes peered in. "Tadashi? Can I come in?"

"Sure, what's going on?"

Hiro ran in and flung himself up onto the bed, giant pajamas hanging off of him. He looked thoughtful and nervous. Tadashi patted the space next to him, and Hiro curled up next to him, looking tired. "...lots of people like that school."

"Uh-huh."

"Lots of people wanna get into the school."

"...yeah." Where was Hiro going with this.

Big, conflicted eyes looked up at Tadashi. "Am I weird for not wanting to go?"

Ah. That's where this was going. Tadashi knew Hiro had had a rough time at school-being the youngest one in the class and still smart enough to correct the teachers, combined with Hiro's natural sassiness, meant that socially...well, there was a reason Hiro didn't really have any friends. As a result, sometimes he could get worried about being even weirder than usual.

Tadashi smiled reassuringly, hugging Hiro. "Nah, you're not weird. If you don't feel like you'd be comfortable, you shouldn't go."

"Cool." Hiro grinned, revealing a few missing teeth. "Plus now I get to go to school with you for a year!"

Tadashi had to swallow hard, and quickly hugged Hiro. "Yeah, that'll be fun." He ruffled Hiro's hair, making the younger boy squawk. "Here, wanna play a game before bed?"

"Sweet!"

Tadashi smiled as Hiro leapt for the controllers. Sometimes the green-eyed monster reared it's head.

But it was easy to make it go away.

(Thank you for reading!)